Marking Time is the second novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling Cazalet Chronicles. Home Place, Sussex, 1939. The English family at war .

. . The sunlit days of childish games and family meals are over, as the shadows of war roll in to cloud the lives of one English family.

At Home Place, the windows are blacked out and food is becoming scarce as a new generation of Cazalets takes up the story. Louise dreams of being a great actress, Clary is an aspiring writer, while Polly, is burdened with knowledge and the need to share it. Read the next books in the series, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change, or start from the beginning with The Light Years.